The Classical Elements: Ideas Part 1

Tuesday afternoon we were given a new studio brief called Animation: Process and Production. For this brief we have to create a narrative animation in which the main character/ subject is ONE of the four classical elements (air, fire, water and earth). We were also told that the animation has to be no less or no more than 20 seconds long and shot at 12 frames per second.

At first I wasn't too sure about the idea and I wasn't feeling so positive about the brief, as I was really stressed as it was. But I went and sat in a quiet room and began to brainstorm the definitions of the elements in the hopes that this would generate some ideas and kick start my thought process, giving me an idea into what paths I'd like to explore and which I'm not so interested in.

Once I started to get into the flow of working I started to come up with a few good ideas that I feel may have potential for an animation. At the moment I'm still not sure whether I want to create a character based on the element I choose or whether I want to keep the element just as that; an element.  However, I do know that I want to portray the behavior of that element as clearly as possible, as I feel that this will portray the element very clearly.

Although I'm not 100% sure I want to use a character yet I still went on to entertain the idea that I could possibly create a character based on the element I choose. I decided to brainstorm the behaviors of each element and try to turn these into possible personality traits for different possible characters. I began to explore the notion of "Sprites" or creatures similar that represent an element and also possess the same behaviors as that element for example, a fire creature would be unpredictable, energetic, quick to temper, passionate and so on. I also went down the route of having a character that had an affinity for one of the elements meaning they'd have the ability to manipulate that element and they would also have a personality that complimented that element.

I feel that SO FAR I have made a good start on generating some initial ideas for this project and hopefully I'll keep on generating ideas as I go along.